1. See Papers of Madison description begins William T. Hutchinson, William M. E. Rachal, et al., eds., The Papers of James Madison (4 vols. to date; Chicago, 1962——). description ends , III, 250, n. 7; 299, n. 1. The letter was Jefferson’s of 20 December to President Thomas McKean, complying belatedly with President Samuel Huntington’s request of 27 April for a number of documents which Colonel Arthur Campbell had taken from the Cherokee Indians in January 1781. According to Huntington’s letter, Jefferson might deem some or all of the manuscripts worthy to be included in a “Collection of American State Papers” being assembled for publication by Ebenezer Hazard (Boyd, Papers of Jefferson description begins Julian P. Boyd et al., eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson (16 vols. to date; Princeton, N.J., 1950——). description ends , V, 562–63; VI, 141 n.). The committee, to which Congress on 22 March 1782 referred Jefferson’s reply and its enclosures, apparently never submitted a report (NA: PCC, No. 186, III, 18). Whether any of these documents were ever in Hazard’s possession is not known. His Historical Collections; Consisting of State Papers, and Other Authentic Documents; Intended as Materials for an History of the United States of America (2 vols.; Philadelphia, 1792–94) does not encompass southern affairs so late as the 1780’s.

Arthur Campbell (1743–1811) of Washington County, Va., was a frontiersman all his life, which included three years as an Indian captive in his youth. He served in the Virginia Convention of 1776 and in the House of Delegates during six sessions between that year and 1788. Involved in many western land speculations, he prominently supported the movement to separate Kentucky from Virginia and to cut off a part of southwestern Virginia for inclusion with the Watauga district of North Carolina in the “State of Franklin” (Thomas P. Abernethy, Western Lands and the American Revolution, pp. 79, 102, 124, 131–32, 166, 191, 255, 258, 261–62, 290–338, passim; Jefferson to JM, 24 March 1782, n. 5).

2. Although Huntington had not been specifically directed by Congress to approach Jefferson on Hazard’s behalf, he was complying with the resolution of Congress of 20 July 1778 (JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XI, 705). JM was concerned, of course, lest there might be material in Campbell’s documents which would be useful to Huntington, McKean, or other delegates in Congress who were strenuously opposing Virginia’s title to the West.